left luperon arrive in ocean world feb 29th

we left luperon on a rainy squally morning.  we had quite a time with the comandande.  we had cleared out on tuesday with customs and port authority and went to visit the comandande to get set up for the  next morning.  we paid our $20.00 and got set up for kirk to pick him up at 7 am and bring him to our boat for an inspection.  it was raining cats and dogs and at the last minute he decided to give us our despacho (check out papers) without visiting our boat.  so kirk came back and told ross on one white tree and in went ross.  it was not raining as hard when ross got there so the comandante sent two trainees to come out and inspect both our boats.  is quite a circus, but the game you play.   you pay $20.00 each time you leave a port in the dominican republic.

out in the rain we went.  we were so happy to have the rain cleaning the boat, however, the seas got rough with the squalls and so we did get some salt back on the boat but nothing like the salt that was on the boat from the night crossing to luperon.

here we are riding the surf into luperon

the channel to get into ocean world was a little tricky with the swell and squalls

this is the channel on a very calm day.   the weather window has not long enough for us to leave though.  you can see the sand bar colored light green.  you kinda had to zig zag around and stick to the greens.  see how the red has moved into the shallow green water.

these horses are right next to the marina.  the first day here we got in trouble trying to get near them.  the day i was out taking pictures no one bothered me.  Is a mama, papa and a colt.  the colt and papa reminded me of our horse Barry with the blaze and socks.  was fun the watch them especially the colt and they certainly were in better shape than the ones in luperon.

maybe they belong to the 7 or 5  story houses on the hill right  behind the marina complex.  there is a bigger house to the right of this one.

every day we hear the south american sea lion show  2 times and the bird show once.  it is very loud and i could almost repeat the show myself.  it was fun the first 3 - 4 times.  it is driving kirk crazy.  this picture is from our boat.

this is Sir Richard Branson's boat Necker Bell.  it is huge.  we saw them in luperon, in fact ross gave them a ride back to their boat after being stranded at the dingy dock in luperon.  quite a small world.  he was invited on for a drink and since he does not drink he had a coke with richard.  ha  we met some of the staff in the reception area the other day.

view of our boat and one white tree from the pool deck, overlooking the sea wall and then to the ocean.  you can see the white caps.  it has been rough weather.  hopefully after this batch we will be able to leave on fri - sat and maybe cross the mona passage on monday   all depends if the weather cooperates

this is part of the facility,  this building houses a restaurant on the ground floor, a casino on the second floor, a show called bravizimo on the third and a night club and lounge on the forth (i think).  we have been to the casino and i made a 5$ donation and drank for free while we played.  kirk won big at roulette $30 or so.  we had a fun and it was free and so were the drinks.  you can't beat that.

the funniest part so far was our trip into puerto plata for groceries.  riding in a car is an experience by itself but when we were leaving we were stuck behind a truck being pushed by two guys riding motor scooters with their feet on the bumper.  it was so funny.  even the driver laughed.

kirk read me something this morning that went like this  in the us we drive on the right side,  in great britan they drive on the left, in domincan republic they drive on the best part of the road.  how true!